“No can do,” Alex said immediately. “Half the county is having Labor Day parties, and they all just realized their yards need a ton of work before then. I’m going to be at it nonstop for the next two weeks. I’ll be lucky if I can take a break long enough to eat dinner once in a while.”
Mrs. Lake sighed. “Well, maybe we can come up with something else.…”
The phone rang again. Stevie jumped, badly startled by the sudden noise. “I can’t get that!” she cried, ignoring the confused look on Alex’s face. “It’s probably that reporter calling back.”
“I’ll get it.” Mrs. Lake’s face was stern as she picked up the receiver. “Hello, Lake residence.… Oh!” Her expression softened. “Hello, Lisa. It’s nice to hear your voice after all this time.”
Stevie’s heart jumped. “It’s Lisa?” she said excitedly, reaching for the phone. Alex, too, had taken a couple of steps forward, his face eager.
Mrs. Lake held up a hand. “Just a second,” she told her children. Then she spoke into the phone again. “Lisa? Stevie and Alex are here, and they’re both dying to talk to you. But first, I have a question for you. Could you and your father use a visitor for a few days? Because I think I have just the girl for you …”
For a second the words didn’t sink in. Then Stevie gasped. “Really?” she cried. “You’d really send me to California?” Her gloom lifted a little. Hadn’t she just been thinking that Lisa could be the one to help her through her problems?
“Hey!” Alex protested. “What about me? I miss Lisa, too!”
“You’ll be working nonstop, remember?” Mrs. Lake winked at Stevie and allowed Alex to wrestle the phone away from her.
For once, Stevie didn’t mind letting her brother talk first. She smiled at her mother, feeling happier than she had in a long time. Soon she would be able to talk to Lisa all she wanted—in California. She would be able to see for herself what was so great about the West Coast. And best of all, she would be there to help Lisa pack to come home, thereby bringing this whole confusing, tumultuous summer to a close once and for all.
“I still can’t believe I’m going, too,” Carole said into the phone.
“I know,” Lisa replied from the other end of the line. “Isn’t it great? The three of us will have almost a whole week to hang out here. You’ll get to meet Evelyn and Lily, see Skye …”
“And you. Don’t forget, you’re the main reason we’re coming.” Carole sighed happily as she settled back against the sofa cushions in her living room. This had all happened so fast. Just a little more than twenty-four hours earlier, she had been at Pine Hollow, searching for Stevie. Now she was practically on her way to the West Coast and days and days of hanging out in gorgeous California sunshine, enjoying some of the glamour and luxury she had been picturing all summer. It had been Mrs. Lake’s idea: She thought that if Stevie had her two best friends with her, she’d be more likely to relax and enjoy the trip. Luckily she had been able to convince Carole’s father, who was almost as crazy about Stevie as if she were his own daughter, to cough up some of the frequent flier miles he’d earned from the cross-country speaking engagements he’d been doing since retiring from the Marines. Luckier still, Denise had been downright eager to start her full-time job at Pine Hollow a couple of weeks early, so Carole was off the hook with Max, too.
“I just hope Alex doesn’t hold this against us too much.” Lisa sounded worried.
Carole shrugged and twined the phone cord around her finger. In her opinion, Alex would just have to deal with it. “I think he understands that Stevie really needs this right now,” she said. “Besides, from what Stevie told me, there’s no way he could get away. He’s already committed to all those lawn jobs.”
Lisa sighed, and Carole guessed that she was missing Alex a lot. “Anyway,” Lisa said, “it’s probably better this way. It sounds like Stevie really needs a break from everything that reminds her of home.”
“Except us,” Carole added immediately. “But you’re right. She’s really had a tough time these past two months.”
“Don’t worry. If anything can cheer her up, it’s the friendly people, blue skies, and gorgeous beaches we’ve got out here.”
Carole raised an eyebrow, a little surprised. What did Lisa mean, we? It almost sounded as if Lisa was thinking of California as home. Carole quickly shrugged the idea off. “Sure,” she said. “It sounds like you’ve been having fun. You know, partying with movie stars and everything.”
Lisa laughed. “Well, TV stars, anyway. And it’s been great. But don’t forget, they’re just people like you and me.”
“Right,” Carole said sarcastically. “I’m so sure that Skye Ransom and Jeremiah Jamison have everything in common with a bunch of snot-nosed Pony Clubbers who all want to ride Patch at every lesson. And of course, Summer Kirke must be exactly like old Mrs. Twitchett, who starts screaming bloody murder if her horse breaks out of a walk.”
Lisa laughed again. “Hey, I didn’t say things here were exactly the same,” she protested. “For instance, back in Willow Creek I’m not just a fifteen-minute walk from the beach. I can’t wait to show you guys around. You’ll love it here. I know you will.”
“Great.” Carole kept her voice bright, but suddenly she didn’t feel quite as excited as she had a few moments before. She bit her lip and picked at the fabric of the sofa. Was it her imagination or did Lisa sound awfully high on this whole California-living thing? Now that Carole thought back over their conversation, Lisa had seemed a lot more interested in talking about all the great things out there than she was in missing the great stuff back home. Could that be true? Or was Carole just being paranoid? Was Lisa thinking of California as home? There was only one way to find out, and that was to ask her about it.
Before Carole could figure out how to broach the subject, she heard a gasp from the other end of the line.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Lisa let out another laugh, though it was a bit high-pitched and nervous. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said breathlessly. “Just a tremor.”
That made Carole sit up straight on the couch. She gripped the phone hard. “A tremor?” she repeated. “You mean, like an earthquake?” She remembered that when Lisa had called them during Callie Forester’s party, she’d said something about a tremor then. Now she was experiencing another one. Suddenly Carole thought these tremors were getting a little too frequent. She knew California had earthquakes, but that was something it hadn’t even occurred to her to worry about—that the earth could open up and swallow Lisa whole at any moment. There are no earthquakes in Willow Creek, she thought.
This time Lisa’s laugh sounded more genuine. “It’s over already,” she announced. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t the Big One this time, I guess.”
Carole forced herself to chuckle in return. “Good,” she said. “Well, I guess I’d better go before Dad realizes how long we’ve been talking and decides to cash in those frequent flier miles to pay the phone bill.”
The two girls said good-bye, and Carole hung up. But she sat still for a few minutes, thinking hard. Something about the conversation had left her feeling unsettled. Maybe it was just the earthquake tremor. That had been pretty weird, talking to Lisa at the same time the ground was shaking under her feet. It had to be what was bothering her.
Then again, maybe that was only part of it.
Buy Reining In Now!
About the Author
Bonnie Bryant is the author of over one hundred forty books about horses, including the Saddle Club series and its spinoffs, the Pony Tails series and the Pine Hollow series. Bryant did not know very much about horses before writing the first Saddle Club book in 1986, so she found herself learning right along with the characters she created. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, Bonnie Bryant Hiller. Bryant was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reprodu
ce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5386-3
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
PINE HOLLOW EBOOKS
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
The Trail Home Page 15